oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of January 12th 2012

This week's stories reveal how the US continues to pursue militarized action in the War on Drugs, while municipal governments in Canada attempt to address the problem with harm reduction outreach. Mexico's once-glamorous resort of Acapulco is now ravaged by drug violence, and Costa Rica sees an emerging crack epidemic tarnish its image as a peaceful oasis in Central America.

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Unmanned drones are
being deployed to surveil the porous border between the United States
and Mexico to staunch the flow of illegal immigrants and drug
smuggling. Costing thousands of dollars per hour to operate, their
effectiveness as a law enforcement tool is being questioned as much
as the privacy concerns they raise. Homeland Security states the
drones do not cross into the Mexican interior. However, according to
an article that appeared in Wired in March 2011, Presidents Barack
Obama and Felipe Calderon agreed to allow the US military to fly
drones over Mexican territory in an effort to detect cartel activity.

Over Arizona, the Predator circled a
ranch, as unseen and silent as a hunting owl. On a bank of computer
screens, the monitoring team watched the truck, which appeared in
ghostly infrared black and white, turn and pull up by a mobile home.
In the yard, three sleeping dogs quickly woke up, their tails
wagging.

In total, 60,000 kits are expected to be distributed at five
locations during an eight-month trial period.

“What this boils down to is it’s about disease prevention,”
said Beutel. “It’s about preventing more communicable diseases
which land these people in hospital on a frequent basis and clog up
emergency rooms.”

In her order, Bolton said the state could file an amended
complaint, but the state would have to satisfy two key problems:
Federal prosecutors have not threatened to prosecute state or
municipal employees for following the law; and the state can't show
that any harm will come absent a court ruling.

"Plaintiffs do not challenge any specific action taken by any
defendant," Bolton wrote. "Plaintiffs also do not describe
any actions by state employees that were in violation of (the
Controlled Substances Act) or any threat of prosecution for any
reason by federal officials.

"These issues, as presented, are not appropriate for judicial
review."

“The days of knocking down doors in drug cases should be over.
Given what’s going on now, you have to consider other options,”
McCarthy told USA Today. “Police should focus on trying to lure
suspects out into the open or just wait them out,” he said.
“It’s time to change our thinking, Cops are exposing themselves
to increasing danger many times over, and it’s just not necessary.”

Ma and pa “narcofamilias” run home kitchens to cook and deal
the rocks on the local street market.

“These are people, entire families, who are dedicated to
narcotics trafficking — from the little kids up to granny. She
could be just a dealer or ‘la madrina’ of the mafia,” Carlos
Alvarado, director of the state-run Costa Rican Institute on Drugs
(ICD), said. He pointed to one recent drug bust in which the family
drug lord turned out to be a little elderly woman in a wheelchair.

The battle for control of Acapulco escalated after the arrest this
August of the faction leader who held together the structure in the
resort. The three groups fighting over it are believed to have loose
links with other organisations, in particular Sinaloa, though others
including the Juárez cartel, La Familia and even the Zetas are
rumoured to be fluttering on the fringes of the conflict.

The bloodbath reached a peak in August when, local officials say,
148 people were killed during the month and the year's total was
approaching 1,000. The door of the morgue was plastered with appeals
to help find the missing, whom the authorities largely ignore.

Ecuador has one of the harshest drug laws in the hemisphere. A
non-violent drug offender can receive the same sentence, sometimes
even stiffer, than a murderer.

In this video, Analia Silva says she started dealing drugs out of
poverty. She explains that she did not even know the type of drugs
she was selling; that she only knew that being the sole provider of
her two children, she needed to make ends meet. Not knowing how to
read or write, she says she considered two options: “becoming a
prostitute or selling drugs.”

In a familiar pattern to anyone who
smokes weed, the inevitable crackdown came, not as a result of
harmless cannabis nor even of its frisky big brother, LSD -- but due
to the same, tired old death drugs that have been killing people and
destroying lives for generations.

The consequences of illegal drug use include severe toxic effects,
such as overdose; dependence; violence or injury due to intoxication;
and the effects on health from chronic use: cardiovascular
disease, cirrhosis
and mental disorders. Health effects vary by drug; marijuana use
rarely leads to a fatal overdose, for example. And within countries,
drug use can be affected by social factors and the availability of
certain drugs.

Hilliard's tragic death brings back
memories of Rachel Hoffman, the 23-year-old, Florida State graduate
from Tallahassee who also worked as an informant after she was busted
with a small amount of marijuana and Ecstasy. Hoffman was sent alone
on a "buy and bust" and was given $13,000 to buy Ecstasy,
cocaine and a gun. The men shot Hoffman five times, stole her car and
credit card, and dumped her body into a ditch.

“Pregnant women and children who are
caught up in the child welfare system and who are disproportionately
low-income and of color, no less than other people, deserve decisions
that are grounded in evidence-based-research,” said Emma S.
Ketteringham, co-counsel on the case and Director of Legal Advocacy
for amici National Advocates for Pregnant Women. Ms. Ketteringham
added, “Pregnant women and families should not be deprived of their
fundamental rights, including the right to family relationships,
based on junk science, or no science at all.”

In
this interview, Stephani Conyers recounts her experience as the child
of drug offenders. Both her father and mother (Rebecca Forbes) received
prison sentences in the State of North Carolina for the cultivation of
cannabis.

Stephani describes in harrowing detail SWAT raids on her
family home while only a young child, life in abusive foster homes,
drugs and sexual abuse, and her struggle to maintain a relationship with
her parents as they went through the criminal justice system.